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LT’s SportsBeat
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By the LT Profits Sports Group
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Saturday, October 30, 2004
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The AFC Rules!
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Many observers feel that the AFC is clearly the dominant conference in the
NFL this season, and it is hard to argue with them when one just looks
at the numbers!
The AFC has gone 32-18, 64.0 % straight up in all non-conference
affairs with the NFC this season, as even teams with losing records like
Buffalo have visited NFC division leaders like Seattle and emerged triumphant.
To further bring this point home, the 10-1 Philadelphia Eagles of the NFC
suffered their lone loss to an AFC team (Pittsburgh)!
What is most impressive from a gambling standpoint however is the
31-17-2, 64.6 % mark against the spread of the AFC vs. the NFC this
year. Not even the mighty Eagles have managed to cover a number vs. the AFC
in 2004, going 0-3 ATS out of conference! The ATS dominance of the AFC
breaks down as follows:
AFC Teams vs. NFC Opponents - 2004 Season through November 28
Home: 14-10-1, 58.3%
Road: 17-7-1, 70.8%
Favorite: 15-11-1, 57.7%
Underdog: 16-6-1, 72.7%
Home Favorite: 9-9, 50.0%
Home Underdog: 5-1-1, 83.3%
Road Favorite: 6-2-1, 75.0%
Road Underdog: 11-5, 68.8%
ALL GAMES: 31-17-2, 64.6%
As you can see, the AFC has been like money in the bank when going
on the road out of conference, and the only area where they are not turning a
big profit is as a home favorite (9-9). A good strategy for the rest of this
season should be to play the AFC in all non-conference road games or as a
non-conference home underdog, passing when they are a non-conference home
favorite. So far this season, this strategy would have yielded a scintillating
22-8-2, 73.3 % ATS mark!
We then did a breakdown by division to see how each AFC division has
fared vs. NFC foes, with some very interesting results. Here are the ATS
results of this analysis:
AFC Teams vs. NFC Opponents - 2004 Season through November 28
AFC East: 10-2, 83.3%
AFC North: 9-3, 75.0%
AFC South: 5-6-1, 45.5%
AFC West: 7-6-1, 53.8%
Please note the utter dominance of the AFC East and North vs. the NFC!
Looking at these numbers, the S/U victory by Buffalo at Seattle or the fact
that BOTH wins by the 2-9 Miami Dolphins have come vs. the NFC (St. Louis, San
Francisco) may not be as surprising as they seemed at first glance. If we
played only AFC East and AFC North teams vs. the NFC and we eliminate the
games where the AFC team was a home favorite as discussed earlier, the
cumulative ATS record so far this season would be 15-2, 88.2 %. That
is one Super System that carries a big wallop! Here are the remaining
non-conference games for these divisions this season:
December 18 (Saturday)
Pittsburgh at New York Giants
December 19
Seattle at New York Jets (PASS)
December 26
Buffalo at San Francisco
New York Giants at Cincinnati (Likely Pass)
January 2
San Francisco at New England (PASS)
New York Jets at St. Louis
Cincinnati at Philadelphia
As you can see, there will be four definite games where this system
will come into play, as the AFC team will be on the road. As for the instances
where the AFC is home, it may be that none of those games will qualify, as the
AFC team will probably be the home favorite in all of them.
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